Effective from January 1, 2016, Act no. 112/2016, changing the Icelandic Income Tax Act no. 90/2003, contains a definition of the term "fixed place of business". Before the change the Icelandic tax code only mentioned "fixed place of business" in Art. 3, as criteria for determining limited liability of foreign companies, without any further guidance on what it entails. It should be noted that the terms "fixed place of business" (föst starfsstöð) and "permanent establishment" (föst atvinnustöð) are reversed, i.e. "fixed place of business" is the equivalent of "permanent establishment" and vice versa under the OECD model and Iceland tax treaty network.

Permanent establishment

cf. Act no. 112/2016, effective from January 1, 2016 (draft translation made by KPMG, not to be relied upon).

Fixed place of business, cf. 4. Point, Paragraph 1, Article 3, means a permanent establishment where the activities of an enterprise is wholly or partly carried out.

A building site or construction or installation project constitutes a fixed place of business only if it lasts more than six months.

Notwithstanding Paragraph 1 and 2 a company is not considered having a fixed place of business in Iceland due to activity which is solely intended to prepare, support or run other operations of the company, including the use of facilities solely for the purpose of storage of documents, display or delivery of goods or merchandise or collecting information for the company. The disposal of a company on servers and associated computer equipment for the use of the said activity does not, on its own, form a fixed place of business.

If company or individual which it has close connection with operates more than one establishment in Iceland where integrated activities take place then it shall be assessed as a whole when evaluating whether it’s preparatory or auxiliary activities. A party is considered having close connection to a company under this paragraph if one has control over the other or both are under control of the same parties.

Company is not considered having fixed place of business in Iceland despite it conducts business in Iceland through broker, agent or other independent intermediary, if this intermediaries operate within the boundaries of their normal business. If intermediary which is not independent conducts operations for a company and has authorization to conclude contracts on behalf of the company in Iceland or generally plays the principal role leading to the conclusion of contracts without material modification by the enterprise, then the company is considered having a fixed place of business in Iceland. This, however, does not apply if the operations of the said party is limited to the operations mentioned in paragraph 3 and which would not make this fixed place of business a permanent establishment according to the paragraph despite paid from permanent establishment.

The fact that a company which is a resident of a Contracting State controls or is controlled by a company which is a resident of Iceland, or which carries on business in Iceland, whether through a permanent establishment or otherwise, shall not of itself constitute either company a permanent establishment of the other.

The Ministry shall by way of Regulation lay down more specific provision on the execution of this provision (regulation no. 1165/2016).